Arrival Stories: Women Share Their Experiences of Becoming Mothers

The maternal experience is varied, “rough and beautiful” according to this intimate collection from actor Schumer and model Burns. The high-power contributors include activists, athletes, authors, entertainers, entrepreneurs, and professors, and the pieces feature them “at their most primal, and their most resourceful,” Burns and Schumer write in their introduction. In “I Ran For the Delivery Guy’s Wife,” Olympic runner Alysia Montaño writes of running a race at 34 weeks pregnant, declaring, “I was a mother, but I was still an athlete.” In “A Third Chance,” entrepreneur Shilpa Shah recounts her pandemic delivery in a hospital that was like a “ghost town,” while philanthropist Adrienne Bosh mulls perinatal depression in “Recovery From Perfectionism.” In “The Advocate,” doula Abby G. Lopez recounts watching her client, from Nicaragua, encounter discrimination during labor. Across the board, the collection avoids sentiment and opts for candid reality: complications, abortion, and miscarriage are all dealt with as part and parcel of a woman’s reproductive life. The stories are consequential, the voices delightfully direct, and the collection’s greatest strength is in its embrace of all the mothers, whether they are single, coupled, straight, queer, or chose adoption. This anthology triumphs by making motherhood feel anything but lonely.(Apr.)